Sunday 29 October 2000

Scant justice for Indians

KENNETH DEER
The Gazette

The recently discovered secret report by the RCMP that cites increased Indian militancy because of recent court decisions reeks of self-serving babble. In order to justify its subversive actions against aboriginal peoples and demands for increased funding, the RCMP uses any argument it can muster to meet its own ends.

The increased activity by Indians is the result of years of abuse, subversion, oppression, fraud, deception and violations of our basic rights. The recent court decisions that have benefited the aboriginal peoples are supposed to help us empower ourselves and share in the natural resources of our lands and waters.

However, this new power is being reined in by the governments and their police forces. The more they try to rein in our rights, the more militant aboriginal peoples will become. There should be no mystery about that.

The RCMP is very eager to blame the court system for the problem of increased Indian militancy. The RCMP should be only too willing to enforce the orders that emanate from the court decisions. But by blaming the court for increased activism, the RCMP is undermining the very court it is duty-bound to uphold.

It appears that the RCMP is warning the court system to back off from making decisions favourable to aboriginal peoples because it could cause an increase of violence in Canada. If this is, indeed, the case, this is unacceptable. The RCMP should desist from any suggestion that it is threatening the court system and its judges by connecting their decisions to Indian violence.

The RCMP is pledged to uphold and respect the legal system. In that spirit, the RCMP should be reminded that the aboriginal peoples are the ones that have won these court cases, not the federal government.

The courts have found the governments, not Indians, to be in violation of the rights of the aboriginal peoples living in Canada. The RCMP should be watching the governments and how they are violating Indians' rights, and act accordingly.

However, this is not the case. The RCMP will not investigate or take the initiative even to study the role that governments have in stealing our lands and our resources. It will probably argue that this is a political issue and not a criminal one - a convenient argument.

However, when we exercise our rights as recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada, we are quickly criminalized and not given the benefit of bringing up a political issue.

The RCMP's secret report is a confirmation of its subversive role: to oppress the aboriginal peoples in Canada even when the court system upholds our rights. You will not see the RCMP charge the federal or provincial governments with any violations of our rights because it does not think that that is a crime.

This is just another example of the institutionalized racism that permeates Canadian society. It is not a crime for governments to deny the Micmacs their right to hunt, fish and gather for more than a century because it is a political decision. But it is a crime for Micmacs to exercise that right and they are arrested because of it.

After the Marshall decision, the government is not arrested for denying the Micmacs their right to hunt, fish or gather, but the Micmacs are still arrested for exercising that right.

Is it any wonder that Indian militancy is growing? The system in its current state does not work for aboriginal people. We don't see justice or fairness, and the RCMP is just a tool for continuing the injustice that is perpetuated against aboriginal people.

The Gazette Board of Contributors: Kenneth Deer is editor of the Eastern Door, the Kahnawake Mohawk territory newspaper. The views of contributors are not necessarily those of The Gazette.